Posted
by
CmdrTacoon Wednesday April 21, 2010 @01:13PM
from the only-flashers-own-trenchcoats dept.

hansamurai writes "After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on 'sexy apps,' Steve Jobs responded, 'We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone. You know, there's a porn store for Android, you can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to go there.' Apps such as Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from 'more reputable companies.'"

Steve Job, today's "moral apostle" on the iPhone, is the same hypocritical fuck who fathered a girl and denied it [cnn.com], yet proclaims his moral superiority to the rest of us because of porn? Steve Jobs doesn't give a flying fuck about porn. It's just more pandering to the Disney crowd. There's nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if he had the balls to admit it.

So it is ok for Apple/Jobs to be self-righteous and sanctimonious, as long as they are profitable? What if they starting losing money, would you then find his words offensive? Perhaps some people find it offensive purely on the basis of it restricting your liberty with hardware you paid dearly for.

Ripping a DVD for your own use is legal. DECRYPTING it with an unauthorized backup tool is not thanks to the DMCA, but the vast majority of porn DVD's have no copy protection, in which case the DMCA doesn't come into play.

Not to mention that there are sites that already cater to this. www.videobox.com for example even has an "iPod" option on their video downloads that downloads a MPEG4 file already optimized for placeback on an iPod, that will import straight into iTunes. Completely legal, and works fine.

For about ten minutes before customers realized that they could still get porn using Safari and that iTunes gladly lets them transfer their porn videos to the iPhone.

You know, being among that (apparently small) group of people who only use my phone for phone calls... I am completely baffled as to why anyone would want porn on their phone. I just can't imagine where I'd be that porn on my phone would be what I most needed.

Then again, I don't text, surf the web, or any of half a dozen things with my cell p

Unfortunately most of the streaming porn that people watch on their browsers is in Flash. The same problem exists with streaming sites that play for foreign dramas. Even if HTML5 really catches on it will generally be for mainstream content. The iTunes thing is kind of a pain. Downloaded videos are rarely in a format that iTunes will recognize. You have to convert your whole library to their format which is time consuming. Porn is more of a spontaneous activity. If your not in the mood to watch it immediately you aren't going to be in the mood to convert your porn files to an iPad friendly format.

I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.

Not only is the actual availability of porn a potential driving force, Apple has just shattered their facade of being a "cool, forward thinking company".

As I said in another comment, their core market is young, rich, art/media types. Apple have far less of a need than many to worry about the older, more conservative buyers. Using porn as the bogeyman just isn't going to fly with young people - trying to drag an opponent's name through the mud by associating it with something that plenty of people now consider harmless just makes Apple look out of touch.

I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.

Perhaps. But Jobs was definitely trying to inspire some FUD (in this case, fear) against the Android when he said "You can download porn, your kids can download porn..."

Well, the caves that had the women with boobies were probably the most popular ones.

There was an interesting piece on the History Channel (I believe) about the brothels of Pompeii.

An awful lot of our history has been determined by either sex or driven because of sex. Occasionally people try to deny this, but in the end it is what drives humanity. Well, humanity is a bit narrow minded, it's what has driven any organism that thrives. Without these instinctual urges, an organism would be a dead end on their evolutionary path.

Someone will probably want to go all religious on this, so let me beat them to the punch.

And iPhone users (including children) don't have access to porn? Last time I checked (guilty as charged!) there are iPhone specific streaming sites for porn. Instead of going to the app store all they have to open up Safari and google for the goodies.

Nope. Google's Market does not allow porn. Steve is just being an asshole because you can go download and install Android apps from wherever. And somehow the worst kind of app is porn. Not, I dunno, malicious apps that steal your passwords.

The anti-porn rhetoric from the head of a politically liberal, gay-friendly company is pretty weird, to say the least.

This rhetoric is really kicking it up a notch. We're getting into really cynical propaganda territory here.

Buy our iPhone! Unless you're one of those porn-addicted Android users. I certainly welcome competition, and our competitors are doing a great job of fulfilling that niche market of phones for porn addicts. So if you're proud of being addicted to porn, show everyone just how much you mean it by purchasing my competitor's fine Android product and taking it with you everywhere. Android: There's no better way to tell the world "I'd rather be watching porn!"

He is really being a dick there. There's a "porn store" for the iPhone as well, called "Mobile Safari". If anything, the prices are lower.

However, if he is going to be an asshole he should have gone just a little further... Something to the effect of "And the inferior multitouch support won't bother you nearly as much if you are always using your phone one-handed..."

Exactly... I love the "Think of the children" line that he uses. As if children should even be using smart phones if there exists content that they shouldn't see. Well played straw-man argument Jobs... Well played...

But I guess Apple want's to parent your kids for you too. New from Apple, the iDad! Never again will you need to know anything about your child's life, simply let the iDad do it for you!

Actually, they just rejected a reportedly extremely nice iPad application that taught kids how to program [wired.com], called "Scratch", based on Alan Kay's ideas from ages ago. It looks like a fantastic idea, but aparently violates their terms and condition, as the kids can 'create programs'. They're not really thinking of the children.

You do realise that Walmart's censorship practices influence the content of music,movies, and video games right? You just gave an extremely good example of why companies who control a huge chunk of a given market acting as moral police is a bad thing.

Nobody gives a damn really that Apple doesn't sell porn. Google doesn't sell porn themselves either. What they care about is that Apple a) doesn't sell porn and b) has made it so that they are the ONLY source of apps on the platform. Essentially resulting in the situation that there simply is no legitimate way to get adult-themed applications on the phone - even if you want them. Web based, sure. Videos you transfer, sure. But apps? Nope. You're SOL.

Nobody cares that Wal-mart does sell porn because the smut shop down the street is a perfectly fine alternate source. HOWEVER, if Wal-mart was legislated to be the absolute only source where one could legally buy physical goods, then people would have a much more valid concern if they refused to sell porn (or chocolate, or ammo, or purple footballs, or any other good which people want but are being purposefully prevented from accessing on the simple whim of a company).

Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone. "

Well, I don't see that porn is particularly harmful to children, especially compared to the violence in media and games sold on the iPhone, so I don't know why one would be a moral imperative and the other would not. I actually think this is marketing, designed to appeal to parents who want their kids kept safe from the evils of... umm... boobies?

But that's okay. If he's recommending an Android phone, I'll probably take him up on it when I purchase a smartphone.

You are telling me that a large percentage of the population find this [wikipedia.org] pornographic? I find that very hard to believe. Most people understand that the difference between mere nudity and pornographic nudity is context.

Every time there is an article related to pornography there are dozens of posts along the lines of "ZOMG BOOBIES!!!" attempting to portray those who want to block pornography as fragile people who think the sight of female breasts will ruin children.

There are perfectly reasonable people who have no problem with children seeing Venus de Milo, breastfeeding mothers, or people sunbathing nude, but want to prevent children from seeing pornography.

Well, an iPhone/iPad isn't exactly the most macho-looking bit of hi-technology, is it?

Every time I see a woman carrying an iPhone, it seemed to be bulked up with big chunky covers and accessories, presumably because otherwise it just looks too girlie.

If you look at it, and track back the design vocabulary of the back and the rim and the little round button, the design ethos is essentially classic ladies jewelery. The silver-backed iPod Touch looks like what you'd expect a Chanel silver-backed ladies' hair

This is marketing-speak for "We're going to be opening the Apple Porn Store very soon. You think the rigid curves of our multi-touch sensors are cool? You ain't seen nothing. Wait for Steve Jobs to say, 'And one more thing.'"

Jobs simultaneously drags the android through the mud while claiming a moral high ground for the iphone. what's Google going to do? Trying to defend pornography will be an uphill battle going to a place "where we don't want to go".

But he's not going to lose the iPhone-is-neato customers, and he's not going to lose the if Apple made a toilet I'd buy it crowd. Those groups either don't care that they're restricted, don't know they're restricted, or actually want to be restricted.

He's saying this for consumption by the media. It's a nice buzz-bit. "Android is for porn." The media will repeat it because it's pithy and uses a titillating word. And the folks who have no clue about restrictions will repeat this to themselves when they go to buy a phone. Wives will insist that husbands buy iPhones for themselves and for the kids.

This is not Jobs being stupid. This is both genius and an indication that Jobs is very, very afraid. His control-everything system depends on him being the master of really the only very good phone/tablet system. There's another system and pretty soon it'll be good enough to make his look less revolutionary. He needs another way to keep his silo full.

Jobs simultaneously drags the android through the mud while claiming a moral high ground for the
iphone. what's Google going to do? Trying to defend pornography will be an uphill battle going to a
place "where we don't want to go".

I dunno... In Google's shoes, I'd respond to this with a one (and a half) sentence press release, something to the
effect of "44% of all internet searches look for porn, and 97% of all households have searched for
porn-related terms more than once. Android - For people who value freedom"

I guess Sergey could say he remembers what it was like being under the thumb of a hopeless totalitarian dickhole from his time living in Soviet Era Russia. So, if you want the same experience of someone else deciding what you can and cannot have access to, shackle yourself to an iPhone.

(By the way, Steve Jobs is the same guy who denied paternity while his daughter and former girlfriend lived on welfare. I don't think he has any solid footing on the moral high ground.)

Depends who you're marketing to. The pro-porn stance might not win you a majority in the overall population, but Apple may well have shot themselves in the foot when it comes to their most loyal customers.

Sure, smartphones are heading for the mainstream now, but the core audience (probably even more so for the iPhone than most others) is young, affluent, media-minded types. That just happens to intersect almost exactly with the segment of the population who are likely to be particularly liberal and progressively minded, the ones who are quite comfortable with sex.

Banning the apps was one thing, but actively using the availability of porn as a negative against Android sounds like something from the 1950s. All this has done is made me think of Jobs as old and out of touch.

After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on "sexy apps," Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn out of the app store to keep the moronic soccer moms off our ass. Folks who want porn can just use safari and browse to it like a normal person. You know, there's plenty of porn available on the iPhone, and plenty of gay porn hookup apps that soccer moms won't even notice. You can download porn via the browser, or any number of "respectable" apps from companies that make us a lot of money like Playboy and Sports Illustrated , your kids can download porn on their iPhones faster than we can attempt to block it, so we just come up with some lame ass story for the soccer mom's and they buy it because they are fucking pathetically stupid. That's a place we don't want to go, blocking safari, because we know kids will find their porn via browser anyway, so we're not going to go there."

"We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone."

Apple's only moral responsibility is to let their users do whatever they feel like, and they have failed.

The "Apple cult" image tossed around as a joke and an insult is becoming more and more true every day. You can't simply buy a device from Apple - you have to buy their device, their software, their platform, and their tastes, desires and morals too, and once you do, you can't separate any of them. This isn't vendor lock-in, it's religion.

I don't believe any sane person believes that maximizing shareholder profits at the expense of consumer freedom and choice is a moral thing. And no, Wall Street is not sane.

Apple has a financial responsibility to it's shareholders, not a moral one. If the law allowed companies to put babies on spikes and make an obscene amount of profit from doing so, any company would do it. The amount of profit companies make these days is obscene. Naked people doing acts based on natural bodily functions to give each other pleasure is not obscene.

Apple has a moral responsibility to provide only high quality apps, and sees that it is necessary to forbid anyone from using their iPhone if they do not abide by their rules; This includes banning porn, and politically sensitive matters. China has a moral responsibility to provide only the highest quality websites, and sees that it is necessary to forbid anyone from using their Internet if they do not abide by their rules; This includes banning porn, and politically sensitive matters.

Look, it is my well educated opinion that Playboy, soft-core BS, swimsuit calendars/photoshoots, and basically the societal desire to objectify women through "moral" sexualizations causes MORE harm than XXX hard core pornography does. Why? Because it's insidious and sends terrible messages to people and messes with their psyches. It's OK to objectify and look at women sexually as long AS LONG AS THERE'S NO SEX INVOLVED?! But, wait, isn't that the point? Oh, no, it's better to get guys hot and bothered with teases and pics of scantily clad women everywhere and then tell them "SEX IS BAD!!!" than it is to show them videos of ACTUAL SEX and saying, "Meh, it's just sex." REALLY?? This is the moral stance??? It's OK to have Janet Jackson sing about sexual topics, dress sluttily and grind her body against a man in a mock sexual ritual but "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! 0.5 SECONDS OF TIT JUST FLASHED ACROSS MY TV SCREEN!!!" That messes with people's heads and gives them warped ideas about sexuality and women.

So Steve Jobs can keep his "moral" porn and I'll hang on to the stuff that doesn't pander to me and send me mixed messages about what's right and wrong, what's ok and what's dirty, and enjoy the wisdom of knowing IT'S ALL ABOUT SEX without pretending "sex but not sex" is somehow better than just sex without all the BS.

'After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on "freedom to use your property as you see fit," Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep freedom away from the iPhone. Folks who want freedom can buy an Android phone. You know, there's a lot of freedom for Android, you can use it anyway you want to, you paid for the hardware, it's yours. You can download porn, your kids can download porn, it's totally free and up to you to do what you want. That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to go there." Apps such as Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from "more reputable companies."'

We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone

I wish some people would take some responsibility and stop buying Apple products because they support the immoral values of billionaires. Stooping to popular opinion and Fandom usually, at the most has led to mediocrity, and sometimes lynch mobs. If Steve Jobs thinks that sex is immoral then I hope he doesn't engage in it himself.

So, the argument and merits boil down to this: You may choose between Bowdlerized digital lifestyle from Apple, or a direct pipeline into the next-generation of Total Information Awareness from Google?

Try and get a Google account without submitting a verifiable mobile number. Combine the use of that account with any phone running Google Maps and Search. Now, multiply that potential by an order of magnitude, when you operate a phone stack that is completely designed and built by Google. Correlate your lo

To get an iPhone you'll need an account with the mobile provider, meaning you'll need to give up your contact info as well as a lot of financial and credit information. This would be enough information to track you down and glean tons info about you.

Plus the iPhone uses a lot of google services and even if they switch away due to Android, Yahoo or whatever replacement is chosen will collect and track you in the same fashion.

I don't know about anyone else, but my primary fear is that my kids would see it and tell one of their friends at school about it. This then gets overheard by a parent with a huge stick up their ass who goes and tells anyone she can find that I'm letting my children watch porn, and before I know it I'm on the sex offender registry and my kids have a new family because this whole country always has a huge kneejerk overreaction whenever sex and children are mentioned in the same paragraph.

In short, it's not that I don't think my kids could handle porn, it's that everyone else couldn't handle the idea that my kids were exposed to porn.

It's a valid fear. I know someone who asked her father about sex she was about 6 or 7. Her father, not being ashamed of the biological process, gave her a frank and straightforward explanation. Being a child, she then told some of her classmates about it and next thing you know: the parents were getting a visit from CPS.

Parents are not ALLOWED to parent their children in America. That's the State's job. (Somewhere, Mussolini is laughing.)

Two anecdotal incidents:

1. My son is wont to run off without looking or thinking if he does not get what he wants (Mom tends to give in to irrational desires, me: far less so). I stopped him from trying to run into highway traffic while he was having one of his fits because he did not want shoes. Later, his mother called police because there was a small abrasion on his stomach. (I held him

It's a moot point anyway. Because the iPhone _does_ allow porn. Playboy is porn right? Safari can view porn right? So he's basically full of shit claiming some moral high ground. It's a joke and that's what we're laughing at. So I'll get off your lawn, if you come and join the fun.

Hooray! I can bitch and moan then. Censorship is one of the many reasons I don't go to wal-mart. They won't sell Cosmo but they will sell you a gun. They censor their music. They break unions. They treat their employees like crap.

Thanks for the invitation to complain. I didn't know you could do that on the internet.

I do not like to be told what I can buy and what not. And I do not shop as Walmart as I do not shop as Aldi or any other discounter which treats their personnel badly. But there is a big difference between Walmart and Apple. Walmart is a store, and I can go to any other store I want when the products from Walmart are not satisfactory. But when I have an iPhone, I can only go to Apple to buy apps. And with iTunes I can only shop at iTunes-Music-Store. This is like Ford having a discounter and you can only drive to the Ford-discounter with your new vehicle, but not to Walmart or any street market.

In addition to designing what the Marketplace is and how it works, we’ve also focused on what users expect of the content they find and have built and operate a certification process that every application and game goes through to meet these customer expectations.

Customers reasonably expect the applications and games they find:- install and run correctly,- use device resources efficiently- are not malware compromising their identity or t

The Android Market porn is actually pretty well hidden. Try the "Tic Tac Toe" app and click on one of the "X"'s three times.

But really, Steve Jobs knows his market, and it is not computer geeks. Geeks know how to find porn, and save money by buying the best hardware they can for the price. Plus the non-geek market, is much, much bigger.

Families are all too happy to throw money at problems if it saves them time trying to comparison shop. I know because I've started doing it myself, unfortunately:-/ But at least not when it comes to technology... yet.